Tuesday, 21 July 2009

Basket Fern; Drynaria rigidula;

I love ferns in the garden. They are cool, tough and at the same time very delicate looking. The basket fern is my favourite.

The long green fronds, ready to be cut off to make room for the fresh ones emerging in spring.

This fern makes its own basket.

Please click pictures to see the intricacies of the nest

Basket Fern: Drynaria rigidula;The fertile fronds of this fern can grow up to one and a half metres long. They were once divided, with the divisions extending to the rachis (the main axis of the lamina).

The fronds are irregular, leathery and stalk-like with irregularly toothed margins, their spores in a single row on either side of the mid rib (principal vein).

The nest leaves can be up to 36cm long and 8cm wide.

Its distribution is Queensland generally, and northern New South Wales from the coast to the ranges and the tablelands.

The Basket Fern is a very common fern throughout its range that can grow as an epiphyte or lithophyte (on wet rocks).

These ferns can grow to form large clumps, with fronds of two types on one growth. They have small brown leaves that catch leaf litter from the canopy to provide nutrients and larger leaves at the top to carry the spores.

The Basket Fern’s distinguishing features include the pinnate fertile fronds, and the fleshy rhizome (underground stem) bearing fronds of 2 types.

They are easily grown in a pot or basket of coarse mixture.

The Basket Fern forms a micro-habitat of its own as frogs, ants, birds and possums live there and other ferns and plants germinate in the basket.

This fern really collects a lot in its basket, doesn't it? :)I have a fern which looks very similar; I wonder if mine is a basket fern. It was a happy accident (grew in a pot containing another plant which I bought from a nursery) so I'm not too sure.

My mother used to grow them in the garden. She attached them to the trunk of the trees in our surrounding. That particular place we lived was cool being surrounded by a big river to the west and a small stream at the rear of the little house we call it Nipa Hut.